metagorgon:

privacyandtechnology:

By: Mark Harris (Wired Backchannel)

From the article:

The scale of Palantir’s implementation, the type, quantity and persistence of the data it processes, and the unprecedented access that many thousands of people have to that data all raise significant concerns about privacy, equity, racial justice, and civil rights. But until now, we haven’t known very much about how the system works, who is using it, and what their problems are. And neither Palantir nor many of the police departments that use it are willing to talk about it. In one of the largest systematic investigations of the company to date, Backchannel filed dozens of public records requests with police forces across America. When Palantir started selling its products to law enforcement, it also laid a paper trail. All 50 states have public records laws providing access to contracts, documents, and emails of local and government bodies. That makes it possible to peer inside the company’s police-related operations in ways that simply aren’t possible with its national security work.

Read more: full text

Via: Light Blue Touchpaper

• “What’s clear is that law enforcement agencies deploying Palantir have run into a host of problems. Exposing data [against access controls] is just the start. In the documents our requests produced, police departments have also accused the company, backed by tech investor and Trump supporter Peter Thiel, of spiraling prices, hard-to-use software, opaque terms of service, and “failure to deliver products” (in the words of one email from the Long Beach police).“
• applying big data and ai to law enforcement, forming a more aggregated and streamlined policing apparatus
• network effects allowed palantir to take a first-mover advantage in law enforcement
• “With the CLETS system, which is comparatively smaller, users have been accused of stalking ex-partners, snooping on potential dates, and even trying to leak details of witnesses to the family of a convicted murderer. California’s CLETS Advisory Committee reports that confirmed cases of misuse have been steadily climbing, reaching 177 in 2016. Palantir puts vastly more data than CLETS in the hands of a wider network of users.“
• palantir uses lock-in and opaque pricing and services to its advantage, bleeding its customers dry
• ““The Department’s understanding was that only Palantir could provide continuous maintenance support of the hardware,” wrote Sheriff Jim McDonnell. “In late December 2015…the Department learned that all [Palantir’s hardware] is in fact comprised of standard, off-the-shelf…computer servers.”“
• ““If you have never studied programming, it is impossible to learn Palantir in any reasonable timeline,” says the analyst, who requested not to be named because they still work with agencies using Palantir. “They’ve built these extremely powerful [tools] that are essentially useless because [most] analysts don’t have the technical background they need.““
• the eff talks about the built-in redlining machine learning applications reproduce, how the “chronic offender“ label used by palantir is problematic and results in overinvestigation based on junk data
  

(via metagorgon-deactivated20181211)

argumate:

disexplications:

Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision. It was different than what I’d talked talked with our senior team about yesterday. I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. I called our legal team and told them what we were going to do. I called our Trust & Safety team and had them stop the service. It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company.

Having made that decision we now need to talk about why it is so dangerous. I’ll be posting something on our blog later today. Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.

Here is the subsequent public blog post.

fascinating

Wow this is a breath of fresh air

This guy has managed to combine “we need to think ASAP about the kind of precedent we’re setting with decisions like this” and “but for the moment, let’s fuck over Nazis,” two sentiments that seem like no-brainers but which you somehow don’t expect anyone with Newsworthy Opinions to be able to hold in their mind simultaneously without exploding

femmenietzsche:

earlyandoftenpodcast:

The podcast is kicked off with a quick look at the founding of Jamestown and the first – sort of – election in what would become the United States, plus a statement of purpose for the series as a whole.

>>>Direct audio link<<<

(Wordpress)    (Twitter)    (Libsyn)

Hey, the podcast is now live!

I won’t give too much of an intro, since I do that in the podcast itself, but as you can see, Early and Often is a podcast about the history of elections in America, all the way from the first colonies to nearly the present. I’m pretty proud of the work I’ve done so far, and there’s a lot more to come. This first episode is just a quick introduction. The first full episode will go up next week.

You can follow the tumblr above, or the Wordpress or Twitter feed I’ve set up, whichever you prefer. The Libsyn has an RSS feed, and the podcast should be up on iTunes soon enough. For now, the content on all of them should be pretty similar. 

Anyway, it’s proven to be a very interesting topic. I’ve enjoyed making these and I hope you enjoy listening to them. Feel free to give feedback about anything you liked or didn’t. Thanks for listening!

(via femmenietzsche)